


not wasted (if it's on you)

by freosan



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M, World of Ruin, World of Ruin Big Bang (Final Fantasy XV), not exactly a fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29435052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freosan/pseuds/freosan
Summary: “Look at us,” he says, pulling himself up to sit on the desk. “I’m not even thirty yet. It’s a good thing I’m not supposed to be King long, I wouldn’t even last.”“Noct,” Ignis says, reproachful.“What? C’mon, Specs. Denying it isn’t going to make it easier.” He leans forward, and reaches out to touch Ignis’s face.Ignis holds Noctis’s hand in place. “Are you not angry?”Noctis could be. There’s a lot of reasons to rage at the gods. But when he reaches for it, the injustice, the unfairness, there’s nothing there. “Not anymore.”
Relationships: Ardyn Izunia & Noctis Lucis Caelum, Gladiolus Amicitia/Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43
Collections: World of Ruin Big Bang





	not wasted (if it's on you)

**Author's Note:**

> With art by the wonderful hheistt ([tumblr](https://hheistt.tumblr.com)/[twitter](https://twitter.com/hheistt))! Thank you so much for drawing this beautiful piece and all the support. ;.;

When Noctis arrives at the Crystal, he isn’t prepared.

He thought, maybe, that he could take something from it. A new weapon, or a new being to fight on his behalf. Instead it cuts and burns and sparks like it’s paying him back for every bit of power he’s ever drawn from it by reenacting all those spells on his body. It drags him forward and he can’t fight it. He’s tired; he’s weak; it’s impossible to resist.

Ardyn’s laughter follows him inside. Then there’s darkness, and peace.

Later, he doesn’t remember what it was like inside. He only has an impression of great loneliness, and great power, and the knowledge that soon, he’ll have to die.

But that’s later. Now the Crystal throws him back out into the world, his sword clattering to the stone floor beside him, and slams itself shut.

***

“Noct? Are you awake?”

It’s Ignis’s voice, but he doesn’t sound as annoyed as Noctis is used to hearing in the mornings. Instead he sounds tired. Rusty. Noctis sits up, blinking until he realizes that he _can_ see, it’s just dark in here. He looks around.

Ignis is in a chair next to the bed, what light there is reflecting off his dark glasses. “Noct?” he asks again.

“I’m awake. Morning, Specs,” Noctis says. Then he coughs. His throat feels dry as a desert.

“Here, drink this.” Ignis hands him a mug full of what turns out to be room-temperature broth. It’s not up to his usual standards, but Noctis is so relieved to be eating something Ignis made - and so ravenously hungry - that he doesn’t care at all.

“Slowly. You’ve been asleep for more than a week. I don’t know how well that will sit with you.”

“A week?” Noctis feels like he could go back to sleep right now. Just holding the mug is an effort. “Where are we?”

“Still in Zegnautus. The daemons have fled, and we didn’t want to move you. Prompto and Gladio are out hunting. They should return within the hour.”

Noctis nods. He doesn’t _like_ that they’re in Zegnautus, but he can’t muster enough energy to really _care_. “What happened? Did Ardyn get away?”

A frown crosses Ignis’s face. “Yes. That man is much more than he seemed,” he says.

“Trust you to understate it,” Noctis replies. His stomach is growling, but he keeps drinking slowly, trying not to shock his system too much. He already feels weird. “So. More than a week. No daemons. What’s…”

He flounders. He wants to ask what they should do. But he doesn’t know how they can move forward. They found the Crystal, which was supposed to solve everything for them, and it… what good did it do them at all?

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“From our perspective? As Gladio tells it, the Crystal sucked you inside itself. Ardyn was there, watching, but when we attacked him, he shrugged off our blows as though they were nothing. We waited for a few hours, and then the Crystal released you. At that point... even I could see it had gone dark.”

Noctis doesn’t remember. From the time he touched the Crystal, it’s all a blur.

He looks down at his hands. The Ring of the Lucii gleams dully in the dim lights. He’s still wearing it, but it feels like nothing. Like metal. Putting it on was soul-wrenching, but this is almost worse.

“The Crystal went dark, huh?” he says. “Does that mean what I think it means?” He can’t quite bring himself to try to touch his magic and find out for himself.

“I’m afraid so,” Ignis says. “We have no magic left. The armiger is inaccessible. The power of the Lucian kings is lost to us.”

Noctis can put a finger on it now, the exhaustion and the off-center feeling in his head. It’s like stasis. He’s cut off from the power that he’s taken for granted since he was born. He tries a couple of times to grab his sword, but it’s like there’s nothing there at all. Where the hilt should be, his hand closes on empty air.

He yells and punches the shitty mattress in his frustration. “We were so _close_ ,” he says, but even that might not be true. Who knows what the Crystal was ever planning to give him.

He hears a rattling of familiar footsteps from outside the room. Prompto barges into the room first, carrying something furry over his shoulder. “Hey, Iggy! We brought meat! How’s sleeping beauty?”

He flicks the light on without waiting for an answer and Noctis blinks as his eyes try to adjust.

“Dude! You’re awake! _Finally_ ,” Prompto says. He drops his game on the ground and rushes over to the side of Noctis’s bed.“Gladio, guess who’s up?”

“Took you long enough,” Gladio grumbles from the doorway. He’s carrying some kind of giant egg, and he puts it down carefully on the floor before he comes over to sit on Noctis’s bed, too.

“You look like shit,” Gladio declares. “Even more than usual.”

“Nice to know you care,” Noctis says.

Prompto puts his hand on Noctis’s shoulder and looks him over, searchingly. Then he takes the mug out of Noctis’s hand, gives it to Gladio, and throws both arms around Noctis in a hug.

Noctis sighs as Prompto takes some of his weight. “You scared the hell out of us,” Prompto says into his ear. “You think you can give us some warning next time?”

“Probably not,” Noctis says.

“We’ve gotta get going, now he’s up,” Gladio says to Ignis. “You’ve heard the news. We can catch him up on the train.”

“Yes, but we can take some time to pull ourselves together, first,” Ignis says. “I see no reason to rush.”

***

They don’t rush. Noctis wants to be on the road right away, but he has to face up to it: it’s impossible. Losing his magic hits him nearly as hard as losing his eyes hit Ignis - not that Noctis would ever say that to him. They’re all dealing. There’s no use in comparing tragedies.

Still, no matter how much he doesn’t want to complain, it’s rough. The ring drained him and talking to the Crystal drained him, and all that sleeping wasn’t enough to get him back to normal. It takes him two days to be able to get as far as the bathroom without Gladio’s help. Another week before he can reliably walk on his own.

It’s not just the exhaustion, either; he didn’t know how much he’d relied on his magic to do what his physical body can’t. His back hasn’t hurt this bad since he was a kid.

Ignis and Gladio help, of course, and once it’s clear that Noctis isn’t going to die in the night, Prompto snaps back to his usual optimistic self. And they have more than enough time to tell Noctis about what they’ve been hearing and seeing.

“The nights are too long,” Gladio explains, over dinner one night. The food’s getting better; Ignis is getting more confident in his abilities, even if Prompto still does most of the chopping for him. “This time of year we should be seeing more daylight now than we were, but it’s just getting worse.”

“And it isn’t only here,” Ignis adds. “The same thing is occurring all over Eos, even in the far south. Even the Niflheim papers are starting to say that it isn’t natural.”

Noctis looks down at the ring on his finger, still black and lifeless, and loses his appetite completely. “It won’t get better,” he says.

“How do you know?” Gladio demands.

Noctis shrugs. “Just do.” He doesn’t know, yet, how to explain. The knowledge he gained inside the Crystal is still halfway out of his reach, and spending too much time thinking of it only reinforces the feeling of impending doom.

“Seriously, that’s all you’ve got for us?”

“ _Gladio_ ,” Ignis says sharply. “Hasn’t Noct been through enough lately?”

Gladio looks Noctis over with his arms crossed. “If he didn’t get _anything_ out of the Crystal, that just means our one shot was a dud.” His expression suggests that it’s Noctis as a whole, not just his experience with the Crystal, that he’s judging.

Prompto’s eyes get wider as the two of them snipe, and Noctis suddenly feels like the entire planet has crashed down on his shoulders. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he says. “Prompto, help me back to bed.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Prompto says, and he stands up to help Noctis get out of his chair. As they move over to the bedroom, Noctis hears Gladio start talking, and Ignis hush him.

“Do you want me to tell him something?” Prompto asks.

“Nope,” Noctis says as he sits back in the bed. He’s not really tired, but he can always sleep these days. As soon as he closes his eyes he’ll be out. “Just want him to leave me alone.”

“Dude, you know we’ve got your back, right? Gladio, too. He’s just… real aggressive about it,” Prompto says. He takes Noctis’s hand in his. “It’s gonna be okay. We trust you.”

Noctis has his own doubts about that, and about whether he even wants them to know what they’re getting into, trusting him. “I can’t give him what he wants,” he says. “I’m not being stubborn. I just _can’t_.”

“I get it. Trust me. I do.” Prompto reaches out and strokes his hair back, and Noctis leans into the comforting touch. Prompto pets his head in little circles like Noctis would do for a cat.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he says with his eyes closed.

“Neither do I,” Prompto says. “Sorry. Not a great window into the mind of the common man here. I just want to get home.”

 _Home_. Home doesn’t really exist anymore. But he nods, even as he feels himself slipping off.

***

Gralea is abandoned by humanity, full of daemons at every corner. They have to fight their way through it - or, Noctis’s friends have to fight through it, while Noctis himself stands with his back against a wall, straining to even hold his sword up. Even Ignis, walking with his cane in one hand and a dagger in the other, is more capable than Noctis is.

Noctis hates it. He knows he’s getting harder to be around, more withdrawn and meaner, but he can’t stop himself. He hurts _all_ the time and when he doesn’t, he’s tired. With no magic, he can’t even make curatives, so when Gladio and Prompto take damage trying to keep him safe, there’s nothing he can do but clean and stitch them up.

Another fight, another abandoned building they’ve claimed for their own, and Prompto has a gash down his ribs that Noctis _desperately_ wants a hi-potion for. He’s never felt so useless. As he cleans and butterflies the wound he keeps reaching for the armiger and there’s nothing _there_.

He knows that Ignis would rather be doing this part and that makes him even angrier. He can’t fight. Specs can’t take care of them. Everything’s upside down and backwards and even the way Prompto smiles through the pain when Noctis jars him makes him mad.

“You don’t have to fake it,” he says, as he puts the bandage on. “I know this sucks.”

“What? Nah, it could be way worse,” Prompto says, then stops himself from whatever he was going to say next, but Noctis can fill in the blanks. He could be getting tortured. The guy who’s supposed to be his best friend could’ve pushed him off a train and into the enemy’s arms.

“Yeah, sure. You’re done,” he says, patting the bandage into place. “Gladio?”

“I’m good,” Gladio says.

Noctis frowns at him. He wouldn’t put it past Gladio to keep pushing himself even if he _weren’t_ ; gods know he pushes Noctis past that point.

Gladio rolls his eyes. “You’re gettin’ as bad as Iggy.”

“If even _Noct_ wants to mother-hen you, you must be in bad shape,” Ignis says. He doesn’t have as good of a judgmental stare now as he did when he could see, but it’s still pretty effective.

“Two minor cuts in my thigh. Don’t need stitches. I’ll patch ‘em up myself,” Gladio reports. “I’ll hold up until we get to Insomnia.”

 _Insomnia_. Noctis doesn’t want to think about where they’re headed, and Gladio won’t stop bringing it up. It’s the most logical place to go. It’s the best shot they have at making a place for themselves now. But that doesn’t mean Noctis feels anything but dread at the thought of seeing his city again.

“Don’t let it get infected,” is all he says.

“I’ve been doing this longer than you have, princess,” Gladio shoots back. He sits on the bed next to Prompto and takes his pants off, revealing the two lacerations in his upper thigh.

Noctis _should_ be able to fix that. He should have the power of _kings_. But instead all he can do is silently hand over the gauze and rubbing alcohol when Gladio holds his hand out.

He’s pretty sure Gladio’s faith in reaching Insomnia is misplaced. The ring, when he twists it on his finger, is still just dead metal.

“Getting to Insomnia isn’t going to help,” he says out loud. It’s just what he’s been thinking this whole time, but everybody else looks at him like he’s either insane or an asshole.

“Sure it will,” Prompto says. “Haven’t you wanted to get back there this whole time? At least we’ll be able to… figure out what happened.”

Not really. Not lately. Not since he found out he’s going to die on the throne. “I know enough. I know we won’t fix the sunlight by going back there.”

“No one expects that to happen, Noct,” Ignis says quietly. “But it is the best place to start searching for a solution. If any of the Citadel libraries are left intact…”

Noctis cuts him off. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Why’s that?” Gladio asks, and now it’s all three of them staring at him like an interrogation. In the bright fluorescent light of the Gralean building, it could practically be staged. Noctis just needs handcuffs and a shittier chair.

This isn’t how he wanted to tell them. “I already know what to do.”

“Wait, what? You know what to do and you haven’t _done_ it yet?” Gladio demands, his voice rising. “Why the hell not?”

Noctis glares right back at him and spits, “Because it’s going to _kill me_.”

He can tell by the look on Gladio’s face that the thought never once crossed his mind. Prompto, too, looks shocked. Ignis, though… Ignis closes his eyes and sighs.

“You knew,” Noctis accuses him. “When did you find out?”

“At Altissia,” Ignis says. He leans forward to find the edge of the table and uses it to guide him around to the couch, where he sits by Noctis’s side. “I received a vision.”

“You never told me,” Noctis says. He’s surprised how much it hurts to know that _Specs_ wouldn’t tell him something.

“I swore it would not come to pass. I still stand by that. I shall not simply sit back and let you die,” Ignis insists.

“It’s part of the prophecy,” Noctis says, feeling as empty as the ring is. “I have to.”

Ignis reaches out for him, and Noctis takes his hand and holds it tight as a lifeline. “The prophecy does not have to be set in stone.”

Noctis shakes his head. “Bahamut sure thought it was.”

“There has to be something we can do, right?” Prompto asks. “Iggy’s right. We’re not just gonna let you die.”

“There’s… time,” Noctis says. “I can’t do it yet even if I wanted to.”

Prompto sits down on his other side and puts his arm around Noctis’s shoulders. It’s not as calming to be between them as Noctis would like it to be. They can’t protect him from this, even though he knows they’d die trying.

He looks up at Gladio, still sitting in the armchair across from the couch. If any of them understands dying for duty, it’s got to be him.

“We’ll do our best,” Gladio says. “And we’ll be with you. Whatever happens.”

“Yeah, we will,” Prompto echoes.

Ignis doesn’t say anything at all, but like he always has, Noctis turns to him. He leans his head heavily into Ignis’s shoulder and Ignis wraps both arms around him, holding him tight. Prompto leans into his back, and soon enough Gladio is in front of him, taking a knee on the floor.

He used to feel he could get through anything with the three of them by his side. He wishes that were still true.

***

They blessedly find the train station two days later. There’s one train out of Gralea still running. Tickets are expensive enough that Ignis spends nearly half an hour trying to haggle the price down and gets nowhere. On the upside, even in their exhausted, unwashed state, they get fewer weird looks than expected at the station.

Once they’re on the train Noctis understands why. Everybody looks hunted now. They’re in the worst shape, probably, but not by a lot. Some of the other travelers sport bandages just like theirs, and everybody has greasy hair and bags under their eyes like they haven’t had time to stop anywhere in a week.

“Niflheim was already spiraling downwards before Iedolas met his end,” Ignis says, when they’re in their sleeper cabin and Prompto describes the scene outside. “It’s only sensible that those who can are getting out.”

The radio reports the darker days in increasingly more alarmed segments. Every morning Noctis has to listen to a new series of questions with no answers. Maybe he should just call in and explain it to them, but he doubts they’d take him seriously, and anyway, he doesn’t want to _tell_ people that he’s lost his magic.

At the port they have just enough Lucian cash on them to get a tiny berth on an airship headed for Ravatogh. It cleans them out, but they can figure out how they’re going to handle that when they get back to Lucis. Prompto and Gladio, at least, still have some skills to trade. Noctis is privately hoping he’ll be back to normal by the time they land.

The cabin is cramped and small, but Noctis can lie down in it and he doesn’t have to fight any daemons for it, so he’s in favor.

At Ravatogh, Gladio and Prompto hunt down an emboldened tonberry and it gets all four of them a room to stay in for the night outside Old Lestallum. Ignis is on the phone immediately with Cid and Cindy, Holly, Sania, Dave - anyone they’ve met who might be able to help them get their feet back under them.

Noctis goes through the motions in a daze. He can’t think about the here and now. He can’t get enough sleep even when he’s in bed for twelve hours a day, and all his dreams are of Bahamut turning into his father and then turning his face away.

He can’t ignore his own thoughts forever, though. Eventually, the day he’s been dreading comes up. They have a truck. They’re only a few hours away from Insomnia. It’s time, no matter how much Noctis doesn’t want it to be.

Noctis drives, and he doesn’t like it; this car is so far from the Regalia it might as well be another species of machine entirely. But needs must, as Ignis would say. He’s sure as hell not trusting Prompto behind the wheel.

He’s only seen Insomnia from the outside once, but he knows the skyline - or what the skyline should be. As they approach it, he can feel only a creeping dread. He can see in the dim twilight of three in the afternoon that there are pieces missing, like punched-out teeth.

“Do we know if anyone’s in there?” he asks.

“Cid hadn’t heard of anyone. Cor claims there are a few who still live on the outskirts of town, but most everyone who could leave, did.”

Just like Gralea. But unlike Gralea, Noctis hasn’t heard of any massive influx of daemons coming from Insomnia. So something else is going on in there. He has an uncomfortable feeling he knows what it might be.

Even inside the city, the streets are dead empty. Noctis drives slowly anyway, though, because he feels like he’s doing something wrong just by being here. It’s dark in the long shadows of the buildings and there’s no movement anywhere. Insomnia’s never been this quiet.

The closer they get to the city center, the worse the roads get. Rubble and potholes are everywhere, and Noctis has to drive all through the streets and sometimes on the sidewalk to get the car through it. No checkpoint at the Citadel, of course. Noctis pulls right up into the courtyard and stops.

One of the Citadel’s towers is gone; another two have chunks taken out of them like a god took a bite out of the steel and concrete. All around the courtyard is the evidence of the fight that destroyed the city.

His father’s body, and Clarus’s, and everyone else who died so that _he_ could carry on, are all inside the Citadel now. Noctis tries not to think about it, but they’re all somber as they get out of the car.

Inside, the Citadel is hushed and cold. Nothing like it should be. Noctis expects, as he pushes the doors open, the rush of calm that comes with being home. But instead his heart only speeds up as he walks in.

The guys are nervous too; they haven’t met any daemons yet, and that’s got them all on edge, waiting for the shoe to drop. Gladio takes up position on Noctis’s left, Prompto on Ignis’s right, all of them with their hands on their weapons as they make their way down the halls.

The first hint of what’s awaiting them is the lights. There shouldn’t be any; there haven’t been any in the city up to now, but the Citadel’s lamps are all lit. The ones down the path to the throne room, at least.

“So much for nobody here,” Noctis mutters. He runs his thumb over the ring, which remains dead silent.

“Somebody stuck around to keep the lights on,” Gladio says. “Any guesses on who?”

“I’m betting we’re about to find out,” Noctis says.

The elevator turns out to be working, too. They take it. Noctis isn’t about to look a gift chocobo in the beak when he’s already been up all those stairs at the front.

The door opens and reveals their path lit up ahead. “Looks like we know where we’re headed,” Noctis mutters. He doesn’t say who’s likely to be in the throne room when they get there, but he knows they’ve all got to be thinking it; the only time they get this much hand-holding, it’s because Ardyn’s involved.

When they arrive at the doors he pauses, and looks at each of them. “Ready, guys?”

Gladio’s face is set in a scowl; Prompto looks terrified, and Noctis can’t blame him; Ignis only nods, a knife already in his hand. Noctis pushes the doors open.

The throne room is only half-lit, the edges filled with dramatic shadows. As always, Noctis’s gaze is pulled up, towards the seat of power - only to see Ardyn lounging there. _How dare he_ , he thinks. How dare he even presume to take what belongs to Noctis’s family.

“I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” Ardyn’s voice rings out. The man himself picks up his head to smirk down at them. “The throne brings you here? It seats only one.”

“That’s my chair you’re on,” Noctis replies. He draws his sword from its sheath - an unwieldy, unfamiliar motion. It’s a cold comfort when he knows no weapon without the power of kings can touch Ardyn.

“By an accident of birth, perhaps. Do you think you are the king to guide your people through _this_ time? I doubt it.”

Noctis gives Gladio a quick hand sign, and Gladio passes it on to Ignis. Then Noctis mounts the stairs to the throne, Gladio at his back, while Prompto and Ignis hang back. Ardyn merely tips his hat as they walk up the stairs towards him.

“Do you imagine you’ll kill me?” Ardyn sits up, throws his blade, and warps behind them, all in one motion. To follow him should be as natural as breathing to Noctis but he can only spin to meet Ardyn’s attack with his blade held high.

He barely parries Ardyn’s strike. He remembers being strong enough to shove Ardyn away and go on the attack. Now it takes all his strength to hold his blade where it is above his head.

“The Crystal was no kinder to you than it was to me, at the end.”

Beside him Gladio brings his sword around. When it slices through Ardyn’s left arm, Ardyn’s grip on his sword doesn’t waver.

Ardyn grins wildly, pulls back, and thrusts. Noctis feels the blade catch first fabric and then skin, and then the pain comes, sharp in the lower part of his stomach.

“Come back when you are prepared, _King Noctis_ ,” Ardyn says, and then Noctis blacks out.

***

When he comes to again he’s in an unfamiliar bed, the sky outside the window a dark twilight blue. He groans. “What the hell?”

“Ardyn,” Prompto says. He’s sitting right by Noctis’s bed. “It is _good_ to see you awake, buddy. Iggy, Gladio! He’s up!” he shouts towards the door. Noctis hears their footsteps coming at a run.

“How long this time?” Noctis asks. His throat feels dry, but it’s not as bad as last time. Maybe Ardyn can’t hurt him as much as the Crystal can.

“About a day,” Prompto tells him. “Ardyn whacked you pretty good.”

“You’re telling me.” Sitting up, Noctis feels sharp pain in his side. He pushes his shirt up, revealing a bandage taking up most of his side. He presses a fingertip into it, and winces.

“Leave it alone. You’re gonna have to get used to healing like the rest of us mortals,” Gladio says as he walks into the room.

Ignis is right behind him, and Noctis guiltily pulls his shirt back down as they settle onto opposite sides of his bed. “Hey, guys.”

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Ignis replies. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a herd of garula just ran me over,” Noctis grumbles.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Gladio says. “But you lived, so nice job.”

Ignis’s hand moves closer to Noctis on the bedspread, and Noctis grabs it and pulls it closer, pressing Ignis’s knuckles to his lips. Gods. He was sure Ardyn was going to kill him for a second there.

“He didn’t hurt you guys?” he asks.

Prompto shakes his head. “Told us to ‘leave before we roused his ire’ and disappeared,” he explains, doing a bad impression of Ardyn’s accent.

Gladio adds, “We’re in the hotel right across from the Citadel. Figured it was better to get out of there.”

“Good call,” Noctis says. Even if seems like Ardyn won’t kill them, he’s glad he didn’t wake up in the Citadel, knowing Ardyn was waiting right around the corner.

“He said ‘come back when you are prepared’,” Gladio says. “What’s that about?”

Noctis lifts his head up. He has a weird flash of a hand - his own hand, though it looks wrong - lifting to jam a knife through Ardyn’s chest. “He knows about the prophecy, too. Maybe more than I do.”

“He was supposed to be king, once, wasn’t he?” Prompto sounds rough; Noctis reaches out to him, too, and he grabs Noctis’s other hand.

“Yeah. But it didn’t work out. He got… corrupted, somehow. And now he can’t die. I’m the only one who can kill him.” Noctis doesn’t know himself whether he learned that from Ardyn or from inside the Crystal. It probably doesn’t matter.

“He doesn’t seem like he wants you to do that,” Gladio says.

“He’s having fun,” Prompto says. “You saw him. The world being like this is perfect for him.”

It hurts Noctis’s ribs, but he reaches out and pulls Prompto into his side, getting him on the bed too. “I won’t let him hurt you,” he says quietly, to all of them. “Not anymore. Promise.”

***

To keep that promise, Noctis insists they leave the city. He can’t defeat Ardyn without the gods’ power - and the gods he fought so hard for, got people _killed_ for, are silent now. The only course is retreat, until he finds a way to bring them back.

They take the trip slowly, out of necessity, stopping during the day to sleep safely and driving as fast as they can in the dark. They get in too many fights, but when they camp, there’s just enough light left in the world that they can pretend they’re on their carefree road trip again. Noctis heals - way too slowly - and starts being able to help.

When they stop for gas no one wants money. They want food, supplies, news of the next town over. That, at least, Noctis can give them. They start gathering as much as they can when they’re out in the wilds to hand over to each person they meet, and they develop a routine: Ignis and Prompto show someone in the house how to cook the weirder stuff, while Gladio and Noctis take everyone else out to learn how to forage. No one’s gardens are growing the way they want them to, and like Gladio keeps saying, nature knows better than they do how to deal with these changes.

Over and over, they have to tell people, the days are going to keep getting shorter until they’re gone. At the start of their trip, Noctis can tell that no one believes them. As they keep moving and they keep being proven right, though, the skepticism gives way to fear.

But there’s something else, too. People start recognizing him when they come through. The first time someone on the street bows and calls him “Your Majesty”, Noctis almost doesn’t know how to react. But it becomes normal quickly after that. People _give_ him stuff, which Ignis catalogues and inventories and hands out to the next person they meet who need it. People ask his opinion on projects, steps they’re taking to help, and listen to him when he gives answers.

They get perks, too. People just want to talk to them. Once on their way out of one of the little towns in Duscae, a teenage girl gives Noctis a hug and a berry pie.

“That was nice!” Prompto says as they set off into the sunset. It’s four in the afternoon and the sun is mostly gone from the sky, leaving only cold purple light. “Pretty cool of them to send us off like that.”

“Yeah, it was,” Noctis says. “Didn’t really expect that.”

“It’s not unwise to curry favor with the new king,” Ignis says.

He’s not wrong, but Noctis doesn’t think that was the only reason it happened. If they didn’t like and trust those people, Ignis would’ve made them throw out the pie, but there it is on his lap.

Things like that make the rest of it easier. Traveling is so much harder now than it used to be, and Noctis doesn’t remember it being easy. There’s mere hours of sunlight each day, so making and breaking camp all take place in the dark, under floodlights and around fires. Soon enough the daylight doesn’t even last long enough for sleep, so they have to set a watch in case daemons come and attack them in the night.

Noctis is _always_ tired and only sometimes capable of walking. But he insists on taking a watch anyway. At least he can still yell for help if he needs to. So he sets up his chair on the edge of the bright circle of fluorescent light, and he waits for something to move out there.

Mostly, it’s boring - the havens have stood for hundreds of years, and in that time the daemons have learned enough to avoid them - but tonight, he sees something coalescing out of the darkness. He shouts the alarm and stands up at the same time, brandishing his sword.

Pain spikes through his legs, but he keeps himself focused. Iron giant. Just one, as far as he can tell. Damn. Those things were hard to take down even when he was at full strength.

“Get _down_!” he hears Gladio bellow from behind him, and he drops to the ground as Gladio rockets forward over him and drives his sword deep into the giant’s stomach.

It doesn’t take the thing out, but it does give Noctis enough room to breathe. He forces himself up to his hands and knees, then gets one foot under him, while Gladio stands over him with his sword raised high, looking for an opening.

He’s got to do something. He should be able to warp right over Gladio’s head and take the injured daemon down. Maybe if he can throw his sword it’ll be good enough. But even getting to his feet makes him grunt with pain, loud enough that Gladio looks back over his shoulder at him.

“Did it hit you?” Gladio demands.

Noctis shakes his head. “I’m fine. Focus on killing that thing.”

Prompto and Ignis are at his side, suddenly, and Noctis raises his sword and forces himself up to the line. He’s not going to be dead weight in this one, dammit. Prompto gets a couple shots off and Gladio winds up for another charge, and Noctis feints left, sword raised, aiming to get the giant to focus on him instead of Gladio.

The only problem is, he isn’t fast enough anymore. The giant’s sword comes down towards him and Noctis can’t get out of the way in time. Only Gladio’s weight barreling into him saves him from getting sliced in half.

“Stay back! I’m damned sure not going to let you die like _this_ ,” Gladio growls at him.

“I can still fight,” Noctis insists, but Gladio shakes his head.

“You’ll get us hurt protecting you. Let us handle it,” he says, as he lifts his sword again. “Trust me.”

It doesn’t feel like trusting him. It feels like leaving him to hang. Noctis grabs the hilt of his sword and sticks it in the ground, but his feet slip and pain lances through his legs when he tries to stand up.

Gladio, sword still raised high in a defensive stance, gives him a look that’s half anger and half pity. “Stay there,” he says again, before he jumps back into the fray.

Without Noctis in the way, they take the daemon out in three blows: Prompto baits it into attacking with a bullet to the side of its head, then Gladio slashes its sword arm off, and Ignis finishes it with both his knives in its guts. Noctis is torn between admiration and a bitter disappointment that he did _nothing._

The daemon miasma floats away on the wind. Noctis looks over his friends, hoping to see if they’re hurt, but all three of them descend on him like he’s the one who just risked his life.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he insists, and grits his teeth as he forces himself to his feet.

***

“Hey Noct, can we stop for a picture?”

“No."

“What? Ah, c’mon…” Prompto trails off in the face of Noctis’s complete refusal to make eye contact.

Noctis knows he’s being a dick, but he can’t help it. Ever since the fight with the iron giant, he can barely look the rest of them in the eye. It’s one thing to know that they’d die for him. It’s another to know that he wouldn’t even be able to try to stop it from happening.

They pull up at a haven near Costlemark a bit past sunrise, around ten in the morning. Noctis gets out of the car and flops on his back on the ground.

He hurts. He isn’t sure he remembers what it’s like to _not_ hurt. He hears the scrape and snap of the tent poles going up, notes when Gladio goes off by himself to pick up firewood, watches through half-closed eyelids as Ignis gets the camp stove going. He doesn’t move, not even when he hears loud footsteps approaching his head.

“Hey.” The footsteps stop. Noctis opens his eyes. Gladio’s standing above him, looking down. “Back hurting you?”

“I’m fine.” Noctis closes his eyes again and turns his head away.

“You’d better not be, ‘cause if you are then you skipped out on pitching camp for no reason like an asshole,” Gladio informs him. “Get up. You need to stretch.”

“Fuck off.”

“Not a chance in hell.” Gladio squats down over him and grabs both his wrists, pulling them over his head; Noctis pulls away, but as soon as he engages his shoulders, pain lances through his whole spine. He grits his teeth and glares.

“Told you so,” Gladio says. “Get your ass up.”

“…I can’t,” Noctis says. He _hates_ it. He feels like he’s eight again. Busted. Useless.

“What do you mean, ‘can’t’?” Gladio asks, frowning.

“It’s my stupid back. I can’t move my legs without it hurting.”

Gladio lets go of Noctis’s hands and looks him up and down again. “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

“Yeah, well, surprise.”

Gladio swats him on the side of the head. “This is why you should’ve told me. Alright, steady.” He moves over to Noctis’s side, and Noctis only realizes what he’s doing after he’s got him in his arms. If Noctis could move, he’d fight him off, but that’s not really an option; he grabs Gladio’s shirt as he walks over to the tent instead.

Gladio lays him out on a sleeping bag - which, _fine_ , is better than the bare rocks - and leaves him for a minute. Noctis hears him talking to Ignis and Prompto. Eventually he comes back, with Prompto behind him.

“I knew you weren’t being a dick for no reason,” Prompto says, looking down at him. “Dumbass.”

“Shut up,” Noctis protests, weakly. Prompto shakes his head and starts stripping him of his clothes. Noctis lets him, because it’s easier than arguing.

By the time he’s done, Noctis can feel himself falling asleep for real. He barely protests when Prompto and Gladio gently flip him over on his stomach, and then he feels Gladio’s big hands press into his back.

“This thing never healed right, did it?” Gladio asks, as he works his way gently around the scar on Noctis’s spine. “Your magic compensated for it.”

“That’s what the Oracle said,” Noctis mutters into the sheets. Even with his magic, it wasn’t easy to get back on his feet the first time. He can’t imagine how he’s going to do it now.

Prompto pushes Noctis’s hair back out of his face. “I’m gonna go help Iggy. Dinner’s in an hour,” he adds. Noctis nods and closes his eyes.

Prompto zips the tent flap shut and Gladio kicks up the intensity, pushing the knots out of Noctis’s muscles by sheer force. “If you can’t fight with us, you can’t try,” he says. Noctis feels himself tense up again, and Gladio digs his thumbs into his shoulders and forces him to relax.

“I’m not leaving you guys to get killed without me,” he snaps, glaring at Gladio the best he can.

“You have to,” Gladio says. “You’re not expendable. If you die in a fight like that, nothing we’ve been through was worth anything.”

“You’re the one who won’t stop yelling at me to push myself. Fucking _ow_.”

Gladio pushes hard on the sides of Noctis’s spine, and Noctis tightens up, knowing it’s going to hurt when he finally lets go of the tension there. Unfortunately, Gladio can’t take a hint. “That was when I knew you could. Now I know you can’t. So _don’t_. It doesn’t matter what you want, here.”

“I just have to stay alive until I can die,” Noctis says bitterly. “Some destiny.”

“That’s what being the king means,” Gladio says. He lightens the pressure and runs his knuckles up and down Noctis’s back. Noctis knows better, but he still feels himself relaxing into the touch. Gladio waits until his breathing evens out and then goes for the kill, pushing hard into the knots in Noctis’s lower back, and Noctis groans out loud as his whole spine re-settles itself.

“That’s more like it.” Gladio slows down, almost petting Noctis instead of continuing with the massage. Noctis feels like he’s going to melt into the floor, all the pain bleeding out of him and leaving his muscles like jelly. Gladio seems to be done talking, and he works his way over Noctis’s shoulders again and down to his butt and thighs quietly.

It’s been - what - maybe six, seven hundred years since an Amicitia outlived their king. Noctis remembers it as something his dad told him when he was trying to impress on him how seriously Gladio took his duties. With kid logic, Noctis had thought, _sure, he’s older than me, that makes sense_. And then he’d tried to forget about it, because going through life knowing one of his best friends was ready to die for him at any time was way too much.

But lately, with all the death and danger around them, it’s hard to ignore. It must be even worse for Gladio. Noctis doubts he’s ever been allowed to forget.

“Don’t get yourself killed on purpose,” he says.

Gladio’s hands stop at his waist. “What are you talking about?”

“I need you with me the whole way. So don’t do some stupid self-sacrifice thing.” Noctis stretches a little and Gladio starts up the massage again. “That’s an order.”

“I won’t. If you keep yourself out of trouble, _Your Majesty_.” Gladio manages to get some sarcasm into the title, but Noctis can hear the strain in his voice.

“I’ll do my best,” he says. Gladio sighs, but leaves it; he must know it’s the most Noctis can do.

***

From then on, Noctis doesn’t so much as leave the car when a daemon shows up. But he keeps taking the watches at night. He wouldn’t be asleep, anyway, and he can still yell.

They haven’t heard a thing from Altissia since they left for Gralea, so they’re heading south with a trunk full of Holly’s daemon-repelling lamps. They’re camped on the beach, ready to sail in the morning, before Noctis catches anything else while he’s on watch. But he doesn’t raise the alarm. Because it’s not a daemon - not exactly - that finds him.

Ardyn appears first as two points of gold light, then a pale, ghostly apparition, and then a whole man, his face deep in shadows. “King Noctis,” he says.

“What are you doing here?” Noctis demands.

“I’ve come to visit another of my kind,” Ardyn says. “For so long I was alone in being cursed to walk the earth though I was already dead.” The shadows cast by the fire move around him, move with him; _he_ hasn’t lost his magic.

Noctis grips the hilt of his sword in front of him. He might not be able to defend himself if Ardyn attacks him, but he isn’t the only one bound by fate. “I guess you’re not so special after all.”

“Far be it from me to raise myself above the Chosen King,” Ardyn says, and grins without humor when Noctis flinches. He presses on. “I take it then that Bahamut, that most glorious manipulator, has informed you of the sacrifice that he demands?”

“Yeah, he told me all about it,” Noctis says, watching Ardyn as he paces back and forth. “The one downside is I can’t kill you yet.” Not until it’s time for them _both_ to die _._

“So eager for vengeance. I knew we would come to see eye to eye,” Ardyn says with a smirk.

Noctis growls, and imagines himself running Ardyn through with his sword, again and again until he can’t heal himself anymore. “This is all your fault,” he says.

“I’d hoped you’d be more original than your ancestors. Alas, blood will out.” Ardyn bends forward, over Noctis, and grips him around the throat, forcing his head back; Noctis tries to knock his hand away but it’s like hitting a brick wall. Ardyn holds him there and looks into his eyes while Noctis tries to pull away from him. It feels like Ardyn is looking inside him, his corrupted magic insinuating itself under Noctis’s skin, and then abruptly Ardyn pulls away.

He sweeps his hat off and bows. “I shall take my leave, Your Majesty. Be well, until we meet again.”

He disappears into the darkness, and Noctis is left alone, shaking with useless rage and fear,

They set sail the next morning. Though Noctis watches for it all day over the water, the sun doesn’t come up at all.

***

Their entrance to Altissia couldn’t be more different. The grand canal and waterfalls of the entryway are gone. Instead, they navigate by headlight through the rocks around the coast until their little boat knocks into a dark, empty pier. They tie up in tense silence.

Inside the city, darkness reigns. There aren’t any people outside, though by Noctis’s clock, it’s barely past four in the afternoon. They find out why when they scare up a daemon that hisses at their lights.

Ignis has a knife through it before the rest of them can even blink, but it gives them all a shock. In Lestallum, at least, the daemons aren’t _that_ bold.

“Secretary Claustra is gonna _really_ appreciate these lightbulbs, huh?” Prompto asks, his voice a little shaky. He retrieves Ignis’s knife, wipes the blade off and hands it back to him.

“No doubt she’ll take any help she can get,” Ignis replies.

They head for Claustra’s estate, keeping an eye out for daemons, as fast as Noctis can make himself walk. There, they meet the first people they’ve seen - a pair of guards who look more scared than threatening.

“Who’s there?” one of them shouts out, raising his gun. Noctis steps into the light, and when they see him, both of them fall into a defensive stance.

“You again,” the other one says. “You caused enough trouble last time, didn’t you?”

Noctis was braced for Claustra not to be thrilled when he showed up, but he didn’t think through how the rest of the city would feel about it. “I’m sorry for the damage you and your city suffered,” he says. “We’re here with an offer of help. We’d like to speak to the First Secretary.”

The two guards glance at each other, and one keeps his gun on Noctis while the other pulls out his cell phone. Noctis can feel Gladio practically humming with tension beside him, ready to jump in front of a bullet if he has to. He prays it won’t come to that.

Finally, the guard gets off the phone. “You can go up,” he says.

“Thank you.” Noctis leads the way. As he walks by, the guy spits at his feet.

It’s not like Noctis has never been the target of vitriol before, but it still smarts. He pauses. Ignis murmurs, “Steady,” and puts a hand on his shoulder, guiding him forward and away.

Unsettled, Noctis leads them up to the entrance of the estate, where Claustra meets them herself. “King Noctis,” she greets him. “What brings you here?”

“First Secretary,” he says, trying to pull on some dignity. “Lucis wishes to extend its aid to Accordo in these difficult times.”

“You’d best come in and explain how, then,” she offers, stepping back.

As she leads them to her office Noctis explains to her about the sun, about the gods’ disappearance, how they’re working to help people to survive until they’re able to bring the light back. The only things he leaves out are his own lack of power and the sacrifice he’ll have to make. Standing in front of her desk, he gives her the high-powered lights, and explains what else he can do for her and her people.

“We’ve worked in Lucis to build enclaves the daemons can’t penetrate. Ignis is probably the best person on the planet to talk to about getting supplies from outside into Accordo. Prompto helped develop the floodlights that mimic sunlight. And Gladio can teach everyone who wants to know how to survive off the land now.”

“And what will Lucis ask from Accordo in return?”

Ignis had a laundry list of suggestions about that. This is probably dumb. But it’s pretty rare lately that Noctis gets asked what _he_ wants, and he’ll be damned if he’s not going to give an honest answer. “Nothing.”

It might be the most wrong-footed he’s ever seen Secretary Claustra, including after half her city was reduced to rubble. “Nothing?”

“It doesn’t matter to me anymore whose country anyone is from,” Noctis says. He tries to sound calm and intense, in the way that his dad would when he was making an impassioned speech. His voice comes out raw instead. “It never should have mattered. Every person on Eos deserves a fighting chance at surviving this night. Whatever you need, I’ll find a way to get it for you.”

“An unusual offer from a king,” Claustra says.

“Maybe so,” Noctis says. “But it’s an honest one.”

She nods. “Accordo accepts your offer,” she says, holding out her hand. Noctis shakes it, feeling more like a king than he thinks he ever has.

***

They stay in Altissia two months. The hotels are all filled with citizens of Accordo who moved to the city for protection, so they stay in one of Weskham’s rooms over the Maagho, all piled into a single bed. It’s pretty nice, all things considered.

It reminds Noctis of nothing so much as his history books. Way back when Lucis was first getting started, before telephones and radios and even the postal service, the kings used to spend half of each year in traveling courts. They’d hit every city and hear all the cases and make sure the laws were being followed, then travel to other countries to reinforce their alliances. He feels a little like that now - like he’s doing something that a king should be doing.

From Altissia, they head back to Caem, and then on to Duscae and Leide, making themselves a little circuit they can keep traveling. It’s rough going a lot of the time, as the world slips further into darkness. But it keeps them busy. Time slips past without much fanfare: another few grey hairs, another scar on Gladio’s shoulders, another headstone in the graveyard when they arrive in a city. They do what they can. Sometimes it isn’t enough, but sometimes it is.

They have the same conversation about once a month. Usually it’s Gladio who brings it up. “Still not time to head back to Insomnia, huh?”

Every single time, Noctis waits like the gods are going to give him a vision. But it never happens. As the months wear on, he gives them less and less time to figure it out. “Not yet, I guess,” he says, shrugging. The ring stays dead on his finger.

***

Another city, another darkened street, another bar serving moonshine and canned meat. It’s not the worst they’ve eaten - or drunk - lately, though, so Noctis is okay with it. They all need a minute to relax, especially Ignis, who’s about run himself ragged these last few weeks they’ve been near the Vesperpool.

Noctis is worried about him. So he demanded they go out and eat some restaurant food instead of making him try to cook again. At least potatoes are still a thing - the fries here aren’t half bad, though they were stupidly expensive.

“Lemme get the next round,” he says, and gets up to make his way through the crowd. He’s not feeling too bad today; it’s nice to be able to stretch his legs a little. As peaceful as it ever gets. He gives his order to the bartender - four shots, don’t ask of what - and waits.

And waits. Over the course of a few seconds he becomes aware that the bartender isn’t moving; that the conversations around him have died away to nothing, and that to his left and right the people sitting at the bar have frozen in place with their drinks halfway to their mouths. He pushes back from the bar and turns, looking around for the man he knows has to be there.

“Such an unexpected place for kings to meet,” he hears, and Ardyn slips out from behind two frozen bar patrons, dropping his hat on one of their heads.

“What do you want?” Noctis demands, but of course he doesn’t get an answer, just a smirk. It’s been too long since he’s seen Ardyn. He’d forgotten the terror that the man’s presence inspires.

He sees where Ardyn’s going, but Ardyn moves faster than he does; he takes the empty seat between Prompto and Gladio and looks each of them over, reaching out to touch Gladio’s frozen face.

“Don’t touch them!” Noctis has his hand on his sword, but Ardyn raises his finger and lifts an eyebrow. Noctis stops where he stands.

Ardyn smirks at him, and slowly, like he’s savoring Noctis’s panic, draws his knife and traces it along Gladio’s jaw. “You show more passion now than when I killed your beloved in front of you. I should have realized where your true feelings lie.”

The futility of trying to stop him now is as bad as the helplessness Noctis felt then. He remembers watching Ardyn wield the knife, Luna falling to the ground…

“You can’t hurt them,” he says, almost pleading.

“No? I fail to see who shall stop me. I may be prevented from killing _you_ , but your compatriots are fair game.” The knife works its way around to Gladio’s throat, and Noctis wonders if Ardyn stabbed him would he just _die_ like this, or is his blood frozen too, waiting for Ardyn to drop the spell before the wound takes him out.

Noctis can’t let it happen. He swallows around his heart beating too hard in his throat. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. The prophecy had them with me.”

“The _prophecy_ ,” Ardyn snarls. “The prophecy will be fulfilled only if I allow it. If I slit your throat now, do you suppose Bahamut would swoop in to save you?”

Noctis runs his finger over the still, silent Ring of the Lucii. No, not really. He’s stopped imagining that the gods are even listening to him after so long. “So why haven’t you done it yet? You killed everyone else.”

Too many Lucians and Niflheimers to count. Ravus. Luna. _Dad_. But not Prompto, even though Ardyn had him for days. Not Ignis when he had the chance. Not Noctis himself, any number of times.

“You want it to come true. Don’t you?”

Ardyn’s face is a maze of black lines and too-pale patches. He looks like a monster; like he might open his mouth and swallow Noctis up like the Crystal did. But he only smiles, too wide. “The desires of those like ourselves mean nothing.”

“No,” Noctis says. “I don’t want to die.”

“In that, at least, you are like all other men.”

“But not like you?”

Ardyn stands up, moving away from Noctis’s friends, and Noctis breathes a sigh of relief even as Ardyn comes to loom over him.

“I am _already dead_ ,” he hisses.

“We can end this,” Noctis says, putting as much steel in his voice as we can. “We both know that it’s going to happen. You don’t have to kill anyone else.” Ardyn’s expression doesn’t change, and Noctis tries again. “You don’t have to suffer anymore.”

“ _I_ am not the one preventing us making an end to it,” Ardyn replies. “It really is such a pity, Noct. As a champion of the Light, you are naught but a disappointment.”

Ardyn sweeps out of the room and life returns to the patrons of the bar. Noctis drops back into his seat and grabs Prompto in a desperate hug, reaching out for Ignis’s hand across the table, breathing too hard with released fear.

“Hey, Noct, whoa, what happened?” Prompto, to his credit, hugs Noctis back and pets his hair.

Gladio puts a hand on his back and Ignis squeezes his fingers tight; Noctis’s heart slows. They’re all with him. Somehow, he protected them. He explains Ardyn’s presence. By the time he’s done, they all look as scared as he was, but he feels calm. He was right about Ardyn; maybe Ardyn is right about him too.

“I think that’s all I’m getting,” Noctis finishes, looking at his hands. “I think… it’s time I stopped waiting around for the gods to talk to me.”

***

The best way to travel in Niflheim, everyone tells them, is with Aranea Highwind. She’s making an even bigger name for herself, working with the Hunters and taking on the nastiest fights. It’s only because it’s Noctis asking that they’re able to even get her current number, and Noctis is pretty sure she only stays on the line because Ignis is the one to greet her.

“I haven’t been back to Gralea since we lost the light,” she says through the speakerphone. “It’s hell in there. You and your fancy god shit might get somewhere, I guess.”

“Do you think we can do it without magic?” Noctis asks.

There’s a long pause, and then, “So that rumor was true.”

“It’s a matter better discussed in person,” Ignis replies before Noctis can. “We can be on a ship to Niflheim in a week. Will you meet us at the port?”

“Sure,” she says. “We can discuss payment then, too.”

She’s as good as her word; when the four of them disembark their ship, she and her crew and her airship are all there to meet them. She folds her arms and looks Noctis up and down.

“You finally did grow up,” she assesses him.

“Good to see you too, Aranea,” Noctis replies.

It takes about four days, inasmuch as there are days. They pass the time with too many rounds of cards and a lot of shop talk. Aranea’s crew are the first people from Niflheim that they’ve gotten to talk with in a while, and from what they’re saying, it sounds… bad. Really bad. Lucis may have gotten off easy by comparison.

The evening of the third day, Ignis calls all of them to the ship’s bridge and starts explaining the plan they’ve come up with.

“We shall touch down as close to the Keep as we can. The floodlights will keep the worst of the daemons back, but we will have to fight from the moment we enter Gralean airspace.”

Aranea lays out an old city map in front of them. She taps the landing position. “There. It’s got the lowest buildings in the area, so less for daemons to hide behind, and it’s a straight shot to one of the entrances to the Keep.”

“Do we know what’s inside there?” Gladio asks. “It was pretty fuckin’ bad last time and they’ve had longer to multiply.”

“No one knows,” Aranea replies. “Nothing in there’s been worth trying to fight through them.”

“It’ll be a challenge,” Noctis says. Once upon a time, he wouldn’t even have thought twice about this. The four of them would’ve cut through the whole hoard without a second thought.

Aranea looks him dead in the eye. “Is the Crystal really going to do what you think it will? Bring the sun back?”

“Not by itself,” Noctis says. “Only if I’m with it.”

“Great, so we have to keep your ass alive _and_ get it out,” she summarizes quickly. “You’re asking a lot, Majesty.”

“I know. I’ll find a way to pay you back.”

Aranea snorts. “If you get the light back? That’s all any of us need. We’re in.”

“Agreed,” Biggs says, and Wedge nods his agreement.

They touch down right where Aranea said they would, a few blocks south of the Keep in a small, barren lot. It might have been a park once; now it’s a daemon nest. The lights from the airship keep them back but not far back enough. They make it only to the first cross-street before the hoard descends.

Every step forward is a fight. Noctis stays in the center, swings his sword when he can, and watches the battlefield as they make their way through it.

It’s not easy. The whole world seems to be daemons and the only saving grace is that they’re fighting each other as much as they’re fighting the humans in the group. Noctis hears screaming and shouting from all sides, watches his friends slash and shoot their way through daemons over and over.

And then suddenly, everything stops. It feels like stumbling through a stuck door. They almost trip over themselves at the sudden disappearance of anything to fight. The silence is loud.

Noctis hears Aranea’s crew cursing and murmuring as they pull themselves together. He glances at Prompto and Gladio, but Ignis is the one who says, “Ardyn.”

“Yeah. Everyone!” Noctis shouts, raising his voice. “Be ready for another round. We’re going inside.”

“You sure about this, Your Majesty?” Aranea asks.

“Not really.” Noctis shrugs. “But we don’t have a choice.”

The door is right where Aranea said it would be, but it’s hanging open. Noctis’s skin crawls. Another invitation. And Ardyn knows that they’ll have to accept it.

Gladio and Aranea lead the way in, and Prompto brings up the rear, pulling the door almost shut behind them. It’s even more oppressively dark inside than outside, their lights illuminating the hallways in narrow beams that seem to get swallowed up before they can reach the walls.

“Keep an ear out,” Ignis says. “The daemons are only kept back, not gone. He can release them at any time.”

“I always knew he was a creep,” Aranea mutters. “Didn’t realize how much of one.”

The first daemon comes at them from the side, a giant flan oozing inexorably towards them, and as Aranea and Gladio fight it off a crowd of imps comes at them from behind. They turn to face the threat slashing and shooting when they can, killing one daemon only to have it replaced with another. Soon enough they’re forced back down the hall, then they have to take a turn down a corridor deeper into the Keep.

In the dark, it’s hard to be sure where they’re going, but Noctis feels like he’s being herded in a familiar direction.

“He’s rolling out the red carpet for us again,” he says when he finds himself back to back with Ignis. “I liked the last one better.”

“Yes, he has a destination in mind,” Ignis replies. “Shall we take the fight to him?”

“Lead the way,” Noctis says.

Ignis takes off running and Noctis follows, shouting for the others to keep up. He can’t see more than a few feet in front of him, so he has to trust that Ignis remembers navigating this place blind, so many years ago, to lead all of them to where Ardyn’s trying to send them.

The daemons give chase but none jump out in front of them. Ignis always knows exactly where he’s going.

“Iggy does it again,” Prompto says, as they come out on the catwalk leading to the Crystal.

“Seems we had the right idea,” Ignis says. And yeah, it does. In here, there are no daemons - it’s silent except for the echo of their footsteps. They all move slower, in single file now. Noctis never understood why Niflheim would build this place this way, unless they wanted people to fall to their deaths.

Without the Crystal shining, the shadows are deep, and their flashlights flicker weirdly in the darkness. Around the landing where the dark Crystal sits, there are shadowy human figures. It takes Noctis several seconds to realize that they all have Prompto’s face.

He shudders, imagining Ardyn bringing them here. They’re all wearing Niflheim military uniforms, and have their hair cropped short. Prompto goes right up to one and nearly touches it; it doesn’t move. Noctis hears Gladio explaining the sight to Ignis in an undertone.

“It just gets better and better,” Aranea says as she surveys the scene. Biggs and Wedge fan out behind the Crystal, and that’s when Noctis hears another set of footsteps behind him.

“It’s so kind of you to visit for once,” Ardyn says, sauntering towards them with all the assurance of someone who doesn’t need to worry about a sixty-foot drop. “I was beginning to think you didn’t want to see me.”

“That’s ‘cause we didn’t,” Gladio says, squaring up to Ardyn with his sword. It won’t help, but it makes Noctis feel better to have him there.

They all turn to watch Ardyn as he walks the circle of the MTs, and he smirks like he’s enjoying the attention - he probably is. “Do you like my friends? You always have yours with you, and I confess I felt left out.” He touches one of the clone’s faces; it doesn’t react, but Prompto does, making a strangled noise behind Noctis.

“What do you want this time?” Noctis asks.

“I want, King Noctis, for you to cease this timidity. It is hardly fitting for one of your illustrious line. Even your father would have tried to finish this by now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No? Allow me to give you a demonstration.” In a flash, Ardyn pushes the clone over the railing. All of them jump forward but none of them can get to it in time; it drops like a rag doll into the empty space below them. Prompto yells, and Aranea curses.

Ardyn smirks, walks forward to the next clone, and grabs it by the throat. No. Noctis isn’t letting this happen.

“ _Stop there_.” Noctis’s voice rings out loud in the giant room. “That’s enough. I told you no one else has to die.”

“Do you imagine you can threaten me?” Ardyn asks. The shadows at the edges of the room shift like they’re ready to turn back into the daemons that he banished. The clone doesn’t resist as he pushes it out over the railing, holding it in one hand like it weighs nothing.

Prompto takes a step forward, but Ardyn raises an eyebrow at him, and he stops. “Noct…”

Maybe in another life, with his magic, with the gods behind him, Noctis could take Ardyn on in a pitched fight. Here, now, with nothing but himself, he wouldn’t dare try. But that doesn’t mean he’s helpless.

“Leave them alone,” he says, putting as much power behind the command as he can. “I don’t have to threaten _you_.”

He turns his back on Ardyn and leans out over the tilted railing, looking down at the drop to the floor. He can see the bottom, with its weird covered lights, and that only makes it worse. Without healing magic, he’s not surviving that. His palms sweat, but he pulls himself up, sitting on the slippery railing. All he has to do is lean backwards….

“Noct, what are you doing?” Prompto asks. Noctis can hear his fear.

“Stay back, guys. It’s okay.” Noctis keeps his eyes fixed on Ardyn, and the clone he holds out over nothing.

“How noble of you,” Ardyn says with a sneer in his voice. “Sacrificing the whole world for a single inhuman creature. You can’t imagine I believe you’d do it.”

“I would,” Noctis says. “Take your pick. Put him down and we’ll both walk away. Or kill him, and lose your chance know peace.”

Ardyn stares at him a long time. Noctis waits for him to make the choice. In his periphery, he sees his friends moving - Ignis takes a step towards him, and Prompto grabs his wrist, keeping him from coming closer and disturbing their tableau. Gladio sheathes his sword and keeps Aranea and her men back.

“I can only imagine the faces of the gods when they find that their precious Chosen King died for an abomination,” Ardyn says. The clone’s face is turning purple. But he hasn’t dropped it yet.

“The gods told me my purpose is to die,” Noctis says. “It’s their own fault if I do it wrong.”

It won’t end well if Ardyn decides the wrong way, and Noctis knows it. They won’t be able to get to him in time to save him. Once he’s dead, it’s likely Ardyn will take his rage out on the rest of them. But he’s not bluffing. He can’t be bluffing - Ardyn will know. They understand each other too well.

Ardyn sets the clone down, almost gently, and it falls to its knees and gasps for breath. Safe, and alive. Noctis lets himself down off the railing; Ignis and Gladio are at his side in an instant. Prompto goes to the side of the injured clone.

Too close to Ardyn, but Ardyn isn’t paying attention to him. Instead he walks over to Noctis and touches his face, almost gently, this time.“Well played, King of Light,” he says.

“I’ll see you again soon,” Noctis tells him.

Something shifts - Noctis isn’t sure what - and then Ardyn is gone, and the too-deep shadows with him. The Crystal sits alone at the center of the platform.

The clones - the almost-MTs with copies of Prompto’s face - stand stone-faced where Ardyn left them. Prompto grabs one of their hands and it doesn’t even twitch. “Can we bring them with us?” he asks.

Aranea frowns. “We won’t have space for both them and the Crystal.”

“They’ll die if we leave them here,” Prompto says. “I know the Crystal’s more important, but, Noct…”

There’s a sensible choice here and a dumb one. Noctis knows damn well they only got here because Ardyn let them; he doesn’t know if they’ll be able to make it back. But it doesn’t matter at all. “We can come back for the Crystal,” he says. “Let’s take these guys home.”

“ _Home_ home?” Gladio asks. “Is that safe?”

Noctis nods. “Yeah. Next time I see Ardyn, things are going to be different.”

***

They drive back to Insomnia, bringing the MTs with them, and almost immediately on crossing the place where the Wall used to be Noctis feels something has changed. He can’t put his finger on it, but as Prompto navigates through the ruined streets, Noctis keeps looking out the window expecting to see people walking down the sidewalk.

The feeling continues and even gets stronger when they pull into the Citadel courtyard. This time, the lights aren’t on inside, but Noctis is still surprised somehow that there’s no one there. It just feels like they should be.

Noctis and Prompto set the clones up in the old guest wing while Gladio and Ignis go to try and start the generators. The Council’s permanent quarters would be nicer, but Noctis can’t face going into the rooms of all those dead people. The clones don’t seem to mind, anyway. They’re still not talking, but they’ll answer questions with a nod or a shake of the head, and when Noctis asks if they each want their own rooms the answer is an emphatic, unanimous _no_.

“It’s a lot nicer than the bunks in the Keep, anyway,” Prompto says as they leave the clones alone and head downstairs. “Maybe they’ll learn to relax a little.”

“I hope so,” Noctis says. “At least they’ll have you around to learn from.”

Noctis is walking a little ahead, and Prompto reaches out and grabs his wrist, making him pause. “What’s up?”

Prompto looks nervous. “I wanted to say, thanks,” he says. “You didn’t have to bring them back here, or… do what you did with Ardyn. So thank you.”

Noctis shrugs, uncomfortably, lacing his fingers with Prompto’s. “I promised I wouldn’t let him hurt you,” is all he says.

“I wouldn’t’ve blamed you if you couldn’t. I didn’t know how you could fight him, so…” Prompto trails off. “You really are ready for this, though, huh?”

“Yeah. I think so.” Noctis doesn’t want to, and he can understand why Prompto won’t say directly that Noctis is ready to die. But facing up to it doesn’t seem so impossible as it once was.

He puts his hand on Prompto’s shoulder, and then Prompto pulls him into a hug, holding him tight enough to bruise. “We’re going to miss you. Everybody, not just me and the guys. The whole world.”

“I’m going to miss you too,” Noctis says into his hair.

Neither of them want to move, but they do have to find Ignis and Gladio. After a while, Prompto pulls away and they head off again. They come through a doorway into the main part of the Citadel, the corridor that leads to the throne, and Noctis stops short.

“Noct?” Prompto asks, but his voice sounds like it’s coming from far away.

Noctis shakes his head. “Sorry,” he says, but the strange sensation doesn’t go away. It’s like hearing music, but only inside his head; like feeling the buzz of electricity right before a lightning strike. “I have to go. Get Ignis and Gladio and come to the throne room.”

Noctis doesn’t even hear Prompto’s reply, he just starts walking. Prompto doesn’t follow him far. This time, Noctis is alone as he opens the doors to the throne room.

The floor is still covered in the broken pieces of the walls and columns, but there’s plenty of space for the Crystal to sit in the center of the room.

Noctis stares at its bulk across the floor, and blinks first. It feels like everything else has fallen away, nothing more important than the Crystal. Noctis is drawn to it, his feet moving without his own input, until he’s once again close enough to touch its side. Around him, the air shimmers; shapes that might be human watch him as he leans forward, resting his head against the cool, rough stone.

He doesn’t expect much. Expecting anything out of the gods is kind of dumb, he’s learned. But when his hand touches the Crystal, the ring he still wears coming in contact with the rock…

There’s a small, careful flash of light. Noctis’s heart nearly stops. He hasn’t done magic in ten years, but he knows it when he sees it. He didn’t realize how much he’d missed it.

The Crystal hums, and so does the ring, a vibration Noctis feels in his bones rather than hears. It’s not the full power he remembers. It’s not the Kings of Old come to visit him in person. But it’s… something. It’s more than he’s had since the day the Crystal threw him out.

His vision is swimming. When he brushes his hand across his face it comes away wet. Leaning on the Crystal, he can feel its warmth, smell the scent of magic being cast. He’d forgotten that smell, but it brings back an avalanche of old memories. “Dad?”

If his dad were here, he’d tell him… something wise that wouldn’t make him feel better. Noctis wants to hear it anyway. If anybody would know how to handle having a prophecy of his own death thrown at him…

Noctis knows that his dad knew what would happen to Insomnia. He still hates that it happened that way, that he didn’t know it was the last time he’d see him. “I’m sorry,” he says, the first time he’s said it out loud. “I miss you.”

The Crystal doesn’t respond in any words. But the crevice on its side - the place where it closed itself off when it rejected Noctis the first time - opens with a noise that echoes around the room. The shine of its magic cuts through the darkness, drowning out all the candles and lightbulbs and turning the throne room into another world.

Noctis steps back, unable to believe it. Putting his hand into the beam of light, he feels the force pushing him away, then tugging at his fingers; it’s nothing like the inexorable pull of the last time. The Crystal doesn’t want him back. But it’s _real_. Too many times over the last few years Noctis has thought that he’d imagined ever having its blessing.

“Noctis!” he hears from behind him - Gladio’s voice - and then running footsteps. But they stop short a few feet away from him. He thinks all three of them are there, but he doesn’t want to turn away from the Crystal’s light.

They could pull him back. This time, he can tell, the Crystal would let them. But he knows they won’t. The last time, they wanted to save him. But now they know that he’s beyond saving. And more than that, they’re willing to let him go, if that’s what it takes to save Eos.

Noctis pulls back, slowly. The Crystal lets him slip away and the light dims to almost nothing. He stands there feeling the power recede and the pain in his spine rush back in, and then he sways on his feet.

Ignis and Prompto are there to catch him, and Gladio is there to lean on as they walk out of the throne room, away from the Crystal’s muted light.

“It’s going to work,” is the first thing he manages to say. “I’m going to bring back the dawn.”

***

They move into the Citadel. There’s no running water, barely any electricity, but there are four walls and a roof and beds big enough for all four of them; it’s not the worst they’ve lived in over the last nine years by a long shot. They don't find anyone's body. Ardyn doesn’t appear to menace them. Noctis doesn’t go back into the throne room.

It’s not too bad, for the end of the world.

“Hey, Specs,” Noctis says, leaning heavily on the doorframe to Ignis’s office.

Ignis is at his desk, one earbud in, frowning at his cell phone the way he used to frown at his papers. More and more, since they moved into the Citadel, he’s been focusing on his research. All through the long night, he’s made them transcribe all the old books and scrolls they can find. Noctis - and Gladio and Prompto, he’s sure, though they haven’t talked about it much - know that he’s trying to figure out how to lift the darkness without letting the prophecy he saw happen.

It’s okay that he wants to try. Noctis understands that. He just wishes Ignis would face the reality that it won’t make a difference, and let himself enjoy their last bit of time together.

Ignis lifts his head when he hears Noctis, but the frown doesn’t smooth from his face. “I’ll be in in just a moment,” he says.

“You said that an hour ago,” Noctis tells him. Okay, forty-five minutes, but not like Ignis will know one way or the other. “I want to get to sleep. Come to bed.”

“I _said_ I will be there in a moment.” Ignis pauses his recording, though. “Surely you can fall asleep without me by now.”

“Maybe I need you to tell me a bedtime story,” Noctis says, smiling enough that Ignis must be able to hear it. He shakes his head, anyway, and seems to relax a bit.

“You’ve heard my whole repertoire by now.” Ignis sighs, and waves his phone. “I think there might be something in this round of apocrypha, but I’ve forgotten where it is, or I can’t find the place… it’s more difficult than it needs to be.”

Noctis knows damn well Ignis would’ve had the entire library of Solheim reconstructed by now if he’d had his sight, but Ignis doesn’t whine like Noctis does. Hearing him even allude to his disability is always kind of unsettling.

“It’s okay,” Noctis says, and with a bit of effort pushes himself off the doorframe and walks over to Ignis’s desk, which he has to lean on. His palms hit it louder than he intended and Ignis sits up sharply.

“Are you alright? Should you be lying down?” Ignis looks like he’s ready to carry Noctis back to bed himself and Noctis almost laughs.

“Look at us,” he says, pulling himself up to sit on the desk. “I’m not even thirty yet. It’s a good thing I’m not supposed to be King long, I wouldn’t even last.”

“ _Noct_ ,” Ignis says, reproachful.

“What? C’mon, Specs. Denying it isn’t going to make it easier.” He leans forward, and reaches out to touch Ignis’s face.

Ignis holds Noctis’s hand in place. “Are you not angry?”

Noctis could be. There’s a lot of reasons to rage at the gods. But when he reaches for it, the injustice, the _unfairness_ , there’s nothing _there_. “Not anymore," he says, eventually. “I’m lucky. I’ll know I did something good for the world. That’s a lot more than most kings can say.”

“I am,” Ignis says. “I have been _outraged_ since I saw what the gods had in store for you. I would slay Bahamut himself if I could find a weapon to do it.”

Ignis’s glare is still lethal. Noctis takes the visor off his face and smooths out his brows like he’s an angry cat. “That wouldn’t save anyone but me.”

It takes a while, but Ignis relaxes into his touch, closing his eyes and sinking towards Noctis’s hands. “You know I would give my own life for you a thousand times.”

“You almost did. It’s okay, Ignis.”

“No. It isn’t.”

Noctis can’t really argue with him there. “It’s something I have to do.”

“I wish that it were not,” Ignis says quietly.

“Yeah. I know,” Noctis says after a while. “But it is. And I don’t think it’s much longer, now, so… come to bed?”

Ignis sighs and takes his other earbud out. “Of course, Noct. Anything you want.”

***

For Noctis’s twentieth birthday, the whole population of Insomnia turned out in the streets. There were parties for a week. Noctis had to give two speeches, one for the public, one for just the nobility assembled at the Citadel. None of it was about _him_ at all. At the time he’d resented it.

Now, at his thirtieth, he understands better. This year, he uses it. The celebrations aren’t nearly as lavish; all the luxuries the Citadel had then are gone, and Noctis isn’t sure he’d want to use them if he had them. But they open the Citadel up, they light it with enough candles and lanterns to make any daemons think twice, and they celebrate. The grand reopening of Insomnia. It’s worth throwing a party for.

Noctis doesn’t dance much, since he only has about an hour a day of standing up in him and he used most of it on the speech he gave to kick things off. But he lets Prompto and Ignis and Gladio each pull him into a few minutes on the floor.

By the time he drags himself away from the celebrations, it’s so late that it’s early in the morning, as much as that matters anymore. But he’s not ready to go to bed. He’s meeting someone.

Ardyn is waiting in the shadows cast by the Citadel’s remaining walls. He shies away when the light from Noctis’s lantern gets too close, but that’s okay. Noctis isn’t too worried about making him comfortable.

“Many happy returns, King Noctis,” Ardyn drawls, giving Noctis the most sarcastic possible bow.

Noctis rolls his eyes. “Thanks for showing up,” he replies. “Maybe I should’ve thrown a party for you.”

“Kind as the thought is, I wouldn’t be able to tell you the date to plan for,” Ardyn says. “I shall have to content myself with secondhand cheer. I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself.”

Noctis shrugs. “I guess. It’s for them, more than me.” He nods towards the wall. The sounds of the party are still going strong: laughing, the stomping of feet, some pop song Prompto loves blaring out of the speakers.

“Spoken like a true king. Your father would be proud.” Ardyn says it with a sneer, and more than anything, that makes Noctis think he’s being honest.

“I hope so,” he says, wholeheartedly. “I’ve been trying.”

“Are you ready to die, then?” Ardyn asks, with exaggerated casualness. “Have you come to terms with all the sins you’ve committed in your life?”

“Nah. Does anyone ever do that?” He can’t be asking Noctis that question, really. It’s got to be about his own shit. “I’m not ready, but I have a duty. You know what’s that like.”

“All too well.” Ardyn looks at Noctis, his eyes bleeding black.

“Hey. I’ll do it right. Make sure everyone knows that you were part of it, too.”

“Shall you write me into your histories as another hero?” Ardyn paces back and forth in front of Noctis, gesturing at nothing. “I suppose the Chosen King can tell any fantasy he likes.”

“No. I’m sick of myths,” Noctis says. “I got Gladio to write it all down. He won’t make either of us look better than we are.”

“It will be soon.”

“Yeah.” Noctis hopes so. If not for his own sake, then for everyone else’s. Even Ardyn’s. Daemonic as he still is, he also looks _tired_. Before he can think it through, he says, “It could be now.”

Ardyn stops still, gazing out at the broken statues of the kings on the Old Wall. It occurs to Noctis that he’s never seen him so quiet before.

“It could be now,” Ardyn repeats, with a tone of finality in his voice.

Noctis leads him around the outside of the Citadel grounds to a back entrance, where they won’t be seen entering the building. There’s no need to involve anyone else right now; this is just for the two of them, kings together.

They walk in silence. Small talk would be stupid, and Noctis doesn’t think it’ll feel better for either of them if he says what he’s thinking: that he wishes it didn’t have to be this way. That both of them deserved better. That he’d gladly take Ardyn’s place if he could.

Side by side, they mount the stairs to the throne. Ardyn moves at the same slow, deliberate pace Noctis does; maybe they have more in common than Noctis thought. When they arrive at the throne, Noctis gestures for Ardyn to take it.

He looks less comfortable in the chair than last time; he sits with his hands wrapped around the armrests, his back straight. “And so the gods have brought us here,” he murmurs. Noctis doesn’t think he’s talking to _him_ at all.

He answers anyway. “The gods didn’t know what they were doing.”

“They never have,” Ardyn agrees. He looks as though he might say something else, but finally, he shakes his head. “Let us end it, with them or without them.”

Noctis draws his sword. It’s the one his father gave him; all his ancestral weapons are still beyond him, but this one has never failed him. It doesn’t now. He thrusts it forward, with all his weight behind it, straight into Ardyn’s chest, and the blade slices clean through him.

“I will await you… in the Beyond,” Ardyn says, with a faint smile on his lips. He seems to be looking over Noctis’s shoulder, and then his face goes slack, lifeless.

Noctis has never killed in cold blood before. He should have something to say, maybe; but all he can do is reach out and close Ardyn’s eyes.

His body dissolves like the daemons, leaving the throne empty. Waiting for Noctis to fill it.

***

It’s not too long after that that Noctis wakes up and he _knows_.

It’s late summer. If the sun were up, it’d be streaming in through the windows in his bedroom, setting everything on fire with light. Noctis wishes he was going to get to see that again. He never really appreciated the Citadel when he lived in it; it was just _home_.

But the throne’s ready to accept him, and he’s ready to accept it, as well.

For once in his life he’s awake earlier than the rest of them. He sits up from the middle of their tangle of limbs and slides down the bed. Gladio wakes up long enough to lift an eyebrow at him, but Noctis shakes his head, and Gladio falls back into sleep with Prompto’s arms wrapped around his waist.

It’s hard to leave them like that, but Noctis gets dressed and slips out the door. He wants a little time to himself, saying goodbye to the Citadel before he has to explain to any of its human inhabitants. He wants to be sure that he’s set things in motion before he has to deal with someone who might try to talk him out of it.

He can feel the Crystal singing, down in the throne room, and his circuitous path through the halls takes him closer and closer to it. He touches the feet of the statues, looks up at the portraits of his ancestors, gazes out the windows into the endless black.

Not endless. He won’t see the sun rise, but his friends will. The rest of the world will. It’ll be enough.

He meets them outside the throne room, where they’ve come like they, too, got a summons from the divine. He’s not sure who reaches out to who, but they all fall on him in a tangle of limbs, hugging tight like they can keep him from leaving them.

“I know, guys. I know. It’s time.” It has to be Noctis who pulls away. He stands in front of them, taking in each of them in turn. They’ve worn their dress uniforms, matching his own raiment; they look like they stepped out of a painting of this prophecy.

“Prompto. Ignis. Gladio. I leave it to you,” he says, watching the weight of his words settling on their shoulders. They bow, Prompto a little more hesitantly than the others.

They walk with him into the throne room, and up to the first landing, but Noctis takes the last round of stairs alone.

He pulls his sword from where he left it in the throne, and takes his seat for the first time. This isn’t how he thought it would happen, but now, he can’t imagine any other way. It feels strange to look at his friends from here.

“I’m ready,” he tells the open air.

It starts with a soft glow from inside the depths of the Crystal. The air shimmers, the ghostly forms of his ancestors taking shape around him. The Crystal blazes with light once again, echoed in the beams from the ring on his finger. He can feel it again, the song of the Kings’ power pouring into him.

He’s watching something from another world, so he doesn’t notice that his friends are with him until Gladio’s hand falls on his shoulder. On his other side, Ignis places his hand on Noctis’s back, and Prompto takes his hand. Despite himself, despite everything, Noctis smiles.

With his friends all around him, he waits for the sword to fall.


End file.
